US Senate investigates possible exaggeration of Iraq intelligence
Fri Feb 13, 3:11 PM ET Add Politics - AFP to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate intelligence committee voted to investigate a possible exaggeration of intelligence by the US administration in making its case for war in Iraq (news - web sites).
The decision came late Thursday, according to a joint statement about the closed-door meeting by the committee's Republican chairman, Pat Roberts of Kansas, and Democratic vice chairman John Rockefeller of West Virginia.
The move "illustrates the commitment of all members to a thorough review, to learning the necessary lessons from our experience with Iraq, and to ensuring that our armed forces and policymakers benefit from the best and most reliable intelligence that can be collected," Roberts said in the statement.
"This agreement reflects a difficult and lengthy process, but in the end, we were able to reach consensus on the need to expand the investigation into several key areas," Rockefeller added.
The Republicans had initially wanted to limit the scope of an investigation to gaps and errors in intelligence concerning the evaluation of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs.
But Democrats pushed for the committee to investigate whether some members of President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), had sought to influence the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites).
Cheney visited CIA (news - web sites) headquarters several times to meet with analysts specializing in Iraq.
Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, a member of the intelligence committee, called these meetings unusual at best and potentially suspect. |
